St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-02-24
Ghe GaIedunia,t,
St. Johnsbury. Vt, Thursday, Feb. "a. 1887
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
OF VERMONT.

-
of our state who are lighting our bat
ties for us. In my thought | have
gone back to the earlier history of the
suffrage movement when their was no
Woman's Journal to voice the plea for
.'woman's rights" or speak her wrongs,
when Lucy Stone seemed to me the
most wonderful and daring of women
to ask that women should vote. But
young school girl that was, thought
she was right and that she was the
prophet of better times for women. So
has she been, in industry, in home-life,
in more just laws. We used to quote
her in our debating society in school,
life, when as president, managed to
have the question "Is woman inferior
to man 2" discussed, and to give "the
argument and merits of the question
to the negative" This was the first
question to be settled, and the school
girls decided it for themselves by al
ways being first in recitatiOns.
1t was happy day for my young
ambition when attended the first wO-
mans convention. | only remember
one illustration about wOman's work.
An old lady drew two circles, one very
large, one very small the first repre-
scented the occupations of men, the
second of women. These last could
he counted on the fingers of one hand /:
Homework, washing, sewing, teaching
and-getting married. And the wO-
men were all huddled in this small
compass far too many of them for the
work of these sorts that could be found
to do, for then--as nOw-many OF these
who chose the last-getting married.
had also to choose another to support
the family. But the men with wide
room, and many avOcatiOns, would
leave their sphere and take one of the
wOman's trades, sewing, perhaps, and
the gentle creatures, though robbed,
would smile and cling little closer to
the few household goods left. But let
a woman creep out into the larger
sphere, and unless she be deaf, the
cries of "masculine" would drive her
back.
eve have cOme," the lady said, "tO
confer together how we may right all
this, open out new worlds of industry
to women, secure equitable laws and
give to women the franchise that she
may protect herself; to Obliterate the
narrow sphere, and let each human
being determine the size of his or her
world by the use made of it."
| have met since then with both
great national suffrage conventions
and heard most of the famous speakers
of our land, but never heard Il truer
prophecy than this.
We of to-day have lived to see wO
man learn the alphabet of individuali-
ty, and spell out the boundary of her
own existence to see woman filling
almost every profession most honor
ably and almost every occupation most
acceptably; to see her receive in many
cases equal wages for equal work, and
better than all, respect for her ability.
We are apt to think because the bal
lot is not ours, that but little has been
won by this constant agitation of the
subject of equal rights. The woman
who earns her living in some mechani-
cal art, getting the same pay as the
man who does the same work, perhaps
derides the agitators of the suffrage
question, and does not know that to
them as first cause she owes her
place.
Does any woman in public life, able
TO hold and thrill large audiences with
her wOmanly power, dare cast shad-
Ow over the pioneers of this mighty
refOrmP Could we go back TO those
earliest preachers of "woman's rights"
Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and pass
through trials unknown to this day,
we would see what our freedom of
speech has cost. 1t was the woman
suffrage believers, asking on every
side, knocking on closed doors, sweep
ing out the cobwebs from the law
books, searching for the principles of
Justice and pleading that they be crys-
tallized into laws, that has made this
world so good and blessed a place
wherein to labor to-day. Let honor
be given where honor is due. "All
roads lead to Rome" The Rome to
which we direct our eyes is not the
ballot, it is the equality and oneness of
humanity, of which the ballot is the
symbol. Therefore all that educates
woman and exalts the ideal of the
home all that provides for the devel
opment of the individual nature God
ward and humanity tends toward
thy Italy, oh earnest suffragist.
Herein is our hope. Great armies of
women are mustered under other ban
ners who also lift your standard. In
magnificent numbers the WOman's
Christian Temperance Union believes
in the woman's ballot as a religious
Al. -
ton that the saloon will never be put
away until the woman's vote is called
in.
| thought much and deeply over the
objection made i'm congress last winter
that to admit the votes of women i'm
Washington Territory, would be bad
precedent and establish the claim of
woman suffrage. You all remember
the argument the Southern senator
made-the flooding the South with the
votes of ignorant cOlOred women.
turned to the brave hearts of our w.
c. T. U. there with feeling that the
relief would be on the way before the
danger was near. Lo! in Tennessee
our brave and intrepid Mrs. Meriweth-
er, has collected and organized the
cOlOred women of her state into a state
w. C.. Il. U. with teachers who are
graduates of Fiske university as lead
ers. And in Alabama where they fol- |
lowed the example of Tennessee, the |
cOlOred children marched in to the |
reading of my Children's Crusade lines |
Little feet a-cOming." This one
thing will power and opportunity do
for woman. 1t will be used to reform
bring it out of ignorance
and sin, and so lift the government it
self to higher, broader plane.
We will have the ballot but first we
must have the individuality of which
it is a sign. We gain it each year.
is a surer mark of our pro-